3.18.2005

Never suppose an inventing mind as source Of this idea nor for that mind compose A voluminous master folded in his fire.

He was on board ship, sailing from Byzantiumwhen the moment of illumination came, a flashof light that staggered him (as happened to Paulon the Damascus road): when he understoodthere can be no ratio, no means of comparison,no middle term, between the finite and the infinite.Thus, since God is infinite, we have no meansof knowing Him (invisible, incommensurate); so,as Paul says, If any man thinks he knows anything,he has not yet known as he ought to know.It follows then, for Nicholas (De Docta Ignorantia)our proper study is, to understand our ignorance.

I think of him in Constantinople, looking upinto that limpid sphere, that massive cupola,Hagia Sophia: gazing back at those gigantic eyes:Christos Pantokrator, hovering there, magnificentin lapis lazuli, translucent marble. He would have known that, even then, all-conquering armiesof the Pasha were encroaching on the city gates;had swept away, already, the last flimsy shreds of once-almighty Christian Rome – history itself grown incompatible with that triumphantimage glaring down.